Yet the memorandum that came out yesterday has such interesting quotes such as:

Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or questionable conduct by administration officials.

They are not looking at the Intelligence Committee; they are ooking at the administration. They say:

We need to look at activities of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the State Department.

They talk about preparing additional views. And they say:

Among other things, we will castigate the majority for seeking to limit the scope of the inquiry.

They talk about an independent investigation, and they say:

We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation on the administration’s use of intelligence at any time.

When you talk about what goes on and how intelligence is used, that is a topic of debate in the political realm, and there is no shortage of that debate in particularly the Democratic primaries right now. We see many of the candidates who are arguing very forcefully about it. I am disappointed that the discussion in the Presidential primary has totally ignored or forgotten the old adage that politics stops at the water’s edge; that we should not be getting into political battles when we have troops in harm’s way, and there is no question we have troops in harm’s way.

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It appears this memo suggests there is, at least at the staff level, a Democratic game plan to make the Intelligence Committee a focal point for the 2004 Presidential debates. This memorandum said:

Yet, we have an important role to play in revealing the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of the senior administration officials who made the case for a unilaterally preemptive war.

Those are pretty harsh words. Those are the words of a political attack.

Between now and 2008, and certainly now and 2006, there is nothing –nothing– a Senate Democrat will do or say that isn’t motivated by the desire to win the mid-terms of the presidency. The sooner the Senator Frist-led GOP figure this out and pledge themselves to realism, the better off they and the country will be.

Establish a select-committee to investigate the CIA’s war on Bush, the various leaks, and especially Joe Wilson’s Walter Mittyisms.